Meta, the giant owner of social networks such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or Threads, has strongly increased its profits during the first quarter of 2026. Specifically, the company founded by Mark Zuckerberg earned 61% more, reaching 26.773 billion dollars (23 billion euros), driven by a tax benefit of 8 billion dollars. Meta’s revenues grew by 33%, reaching 56.311 billion dollars (about 48.2 billion euros).
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Despite this improvement in profits, Meta’s shares plummeted about 7% in the futures market because the company led by Zuckerberg has warned that it expects to spend even more than expected on AI investments. Markets are concerned because Meta was already one of the world’s leading investors in artificial intelligence, and the benefits of these expenditures are yet to be seen.
The company has been developing its own language models and using this technology to improve advertising personalization and thus attract more revenue. However, its strenuous effort will cost it between 125 billion and 145 billion dollars this year when it previously expected to spend between 115 billion and 135 billion. The firm attributes this increase to rising costs.
Precisely, within the framework of the multimillion-dollar investments made by Meta to avoid falling behind in artificial intelligence and in an attempt to contain the cost structure, Meta announced last week the dismissal of 8,000 people, 10% of its global workforce, and the cancellation of 6,000 new hires that the firm had planned to make in the coming months.
So far this year, Meta’s shares have accumulated a modest appreciation of around 1.6%. Its market value remains at 1.7 trillion dollars, about 282 billion dollars below its all-time highs set in 2025.
During the first quarter of the year, the American company has faced several setbacks from authorities. This week in Brussels, an investigation was opened against Meta for alleged inaction by the company to prevent minors under 13 from accessing platforms like Instagram or Facebook. In China, Beijing has prevented Meta from acquiring the AI start-up Manus for 2 billion dollars (1.711 billion euros).
Manus became very popular at the beginning of 2025, almost in parallel with the emergence of DeepSeek, after launching the world’s first general AI agent, capable of making decisions and executing tasks autonomously, with much less need for instructions than AI chatbots. By spending heavily and cutting human costs, Meta continues to bet, like the rest of the Magnificent Seven, on the technology that keeps the market near highs despite the greatest disruption in global oil supply in decades.
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